Thursday, February 26, 2015

Amateur Radio Newsline is seeking nominations for its 2015 Young Ham of the
Year Award. CQ is a long-time corporate co-sponsor of the award.

For consideration, a nominee must have used amateur radio in some
way that has benefited his or her community or encouraged technological
development directly or indirectly related to communications.

Nominees must be 19 years of age or younger, and reside in the United States
including Hawaii, Alaska, Canada, and Puerto Rico or any of the Canadian provinces.. The individual must also hold a currently valid United States or
Canadian amateur radio license.

This award is not a contest. The person selected as "Young Ham of the
Year" is judged on his or her overall accomplishments and contributions. Any
prizes awarded are secondary in nature.

For example, a youngster whose only claim to fame is that of being licensed
as an extra at age 5 would not necessarily be judged as having made a
significant contribution to the Amateur Radio Service. On the other hand, a 14
or 15 year-old Technician running a Net during a major disaster or whose
experimentation has advanced the state of the art in science, technology or
electronic communications would definitely be given consideration.

The deadline for submitting an application is May 30th 2015 and the
decision of the judging committee is final. To obtain an application, send a
self addressed, stamped envelope to:

2015 Young Ham of the Year Award

c/o Amateur
Radio Newsline 28197 Robin Ave.

Santa Clarita, CA 91350.

You may also download
a form in Microsoft Word format by going to www.arnewsline.org/yhoty/ and clicking on the word "here".
Basic instructions on what documentation is required and how to file are included
on the nominating form.

Presentation of the 2015 Amateur Radio Newsline Young Ham of the Year Award
will take place the weekend of August 15 ­ 16 at the Huntsville Hamfest in Huntsville,
Alabama.

Wednesday, February 18, 2015

Waiting to receive your
ham license in the mail is now a thing of the past, unless you have
specifically requested it. As of February 17, the FCC stopped routinely issuing
paper license documents to amateur licensees, noting that inclusion in the
Commission's online database has for several years been the official record of
a ham's authorization to operate.

Licensees may print out official copies - as
well as unofficial "reference copies" - of their licenses via the
FCC's Universal Licensing System (ULS) database, or may request the issuance of
a paper document.

According to the ARRL Letter, the ARRL had asked that
new licensees continue to receive paper licenses, along with instructions on
how to set up their ULS accounts for future license renewals and upgrades. But
the FCC declined, saying applicants or licensees who include e-mail addresses
with their applications will receive an official electronic authorization via
e-mail. The Commission says the change will save it over $300,000 a year.

The BBC in early February abruptly dropped all of its Windows Media and
AAC/AAC+ encoded internet radio streams in favor a limited number of streams
only compatible with devices that can handle new codecs (HDS/HLS) from Adobe and
Apple. Short term lower quality MP3 feeds have been
substituted for some of the lost streams.

The plans to drop WMA were announced
in an obscure blog six months ago but the AAC decision was not. No over-the-air announcements were made in advance. The result was that many users were suddenly
unable to stream the BBC and did not know why. Support for “on-demand” feeds is
expected to end later in the month. Limited support for podcasts, probably in
MP3, will go forward for an interim period before all MP3 support will also end.

BBC managers posting to one of their blogs have said this is
a cost-saving measure and an attempt to adopt state of the art technology. Users
haven’t been mollified and hundreds of critical comments have been posted on the
BBC web site. Some users have filed complaints with British regulators over the
unexpected changes.

The changes have cut off users of most standalone internet
radio devices (including very recent high end stereo receivers and Sonos
devices) in favor of codecs that work on some but not all smartphones and most
PCs with current version browsers and operating systems. Aggregation services
such as TuneIn, vTuner, and Reciva have been scrambling to substitute the low
quality and apparently unreliable MP3 feeds the BBC is offering instead. Most
devices for the visually impaired have been rendered useless by the
change as well.

Hardware manufacturers are also scrambling but many are unable or find
it prohibitively expensive to make changes to their hardware already sold or in
the pipeline. Most users won’t know how to apply the firmware fixes even where
available. For retailers, if the product can’t stream the world’s largest public
broadcaster, it has to be a big negative on sales in many parts of the world.

The ARRL board of
directors has eliminated the long-standing DXCC award rule that
remotely-operated stations must be in the same DXCC entity (country) as the
operator.

The ARRL Letter reports that the change "acknowledges the
reality of the technology enabling remote operation" and says it is now up
to the operator to make sure he or she is "applying that technology
ethically and responsibly."

CQ recently addressed remote operating with a
different approach, creating a second track of award categories for remote
operation.

The ARRL board of
directors also made some changes at its January meeting in the rules for
League-sponsored VHF and UHF contests. Specifically, according to the ARRL
Letter, the board decided to allow the use of assistance in all categories,
to permit self-spotting in all categories and to allow single operators to
transmit on more than one band simultaneously.

The Dayton Hamvention®
will remain at Hara Arena for the foreseeable future, despite local news
reports (circulated widely in amateur circles) about the facility's financial
woes.

According to the ARRL Letter,
2015 Hamvention General Chairman Jim Tiderman, N8IDS, said both the Hamvention
and the Dayton Amateur Radio Association "have absolute confidence"
that the arena's owners will succeed in "guiding their corporation through
the steps in the plans in place to keep Hara operating for years to come,"
adding, "we simply stand by them and repeat, 'the show will go on.' "

In December, a Dayton TV station reported that the arena owners were facing
financial problems and had laid off several full-time staff members in order to
reduce expenses.

The
Dayton Hamvention® reports that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security will
again offer its Auxiliary Communications (AuxComm) course in Dayton just before
this year's Hamvention.

The course, offered by DHS's Office of Emergency
Communications, "trains qualified amateur ration operators to assist their
local, county and state governments with emergency backup communications,"
according to an announcement from the Dayton Amateur Radio Association. More
than 1000 amateurs have already completed the course.

It will be offered from
May 12-14, with a registration limit of 50 students. Details are available on
the Hamvention website at < www.hamvention.org >.

RadioShack
has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, which allows it to continue
operating while reorganizing and working out arrangements with creditors. The
chain also announced plans to close over 1700 stores, and to sell many others
to cellphone carrier Sprint.

There had been no indication at press time as to
whether the stores that remain open will continue to operate under the
RadioShack name or whether they will continue to sell electronic components and
other items of interest to do-it-yourselfers, including hams.

Vehicular
radar systems that help with parking and collision prevention are becoming more
and more common, increasing the need for spectrum on which to operate. The FCC,
which already has allocated 76-77 GHz to the radar systems, is now looking at
the entire 76-81 GHz band, which is currently a shared-use ham band, with
amateur radio having a primary allocation at 77.5-78 GHz.

The FCC action is in
response to a petition for rulemaking by Robert Bosch LLC. Bosch said in its
filing that it had met several times with ARRL technical staff and, according
to the ARRL Letter, "is unconvinced … that there is any 'significant
incompatibility' " between current amateur operations on the band and its
short-range radar system.

The FCC, however, notes that it had previously
suspended amateur operation at 76-77 GHz to prevent interference with radar
systems and wants to be sure that any rules affecting amateur use of the full
band are applied "in a comprehensive and consistent manner." It is
looking for input on possible alternative spectrum in the same frequency ranges
for amateur use. The proceeding is ET Docket 15-26.

AMSAT
reports that the first in its upcoming series of "Fox-1" satellites
has been scheduled for launch in late August, sharing a ride from Vandenberg
Air Force Base in California with a satellite being orbited by the National
Reconnaissance Office. Fox-1A will have an FM transponder with uplink on 70
centimeters and downlink on 2 meters.

Additional Fox-1 series launches are
tentatively scheduled for later this year and 2016. The first two launches are
part of a NASA-funded program, but the Fox-1C launch is being paid for by
AMSAT, which is currently raising funds to cover those costs. More information
is available on < www.amsat.org > and on the FundRazr crowdfunding site.

Four satellites carrying amateur radio transponderswere launched together from California on Jan. 31.(NASA Photo)

Four
NASA satellites carrying ham radio transponders were launched on January 31
from California, along with NASA's "Soil Moisture Active Passive," or
SMAP, satellite. SMAP is designed to map the amount of moisture in surface soil
(a.k.a. mud) around the globe. According to the ARRL, its synthetic aperture
radar will operate at 1.26 GHz, within the 23-centimeter ham band (ham radio is
secondary on the band).

The four other satellites all are studying various
aspects of space weather and operate on 437 MHz, within the 70-centimeter
amateur band. Hams will be able to monitor their telemetry but there is no
indication that any of them include transponders for two-way amateur
communication.

A
foil "party balloon" carrying a tiny amateur radio transmitter flew
from Melbourne, Australia across the Pacific Ocean to South America, then
across the Atlantic and southern Africa before landing off the coast of
Madagascar in the Indian Ocean.

The ARRL Letter reports that the balloon carried a
25-milliwatt transmitter, sending out telemetry via the WSPR and JT9 digital
modes on 20 and 30 meters during its 20-day flight. It was launched December 27
by Andy Nguyen, VK3YT, in hopes that it might make it all the way around the
world, and was tracked by many hams as it traveled eastward.

The
ARRL and QRZ.com have begun sharing contact data between the League's Logbook
of the World (LoTW) system and QRZ Logbook, the callsign-info site's online log
system. But it's only one-way, at least for now. The ARRL
Letter
reports that QRZ Logbook users are now able to download their LoTW contacts
into the QRZ system, along with their confirmation status.

There is no
reciprocal upload of QRZ Logbook contacts to LoTW, and as yet, no major award
programs accept QRZ Logbook listings for award credit.

Michigan
in January became the 31st state to codify the FCC's limited pre-emption of
amateur antenna restrictions (commonly known as PRB-1) into state law,
according to ARRL Michigan Section Manager Larry Camp, WB8R. Including the
FCC's requirements for "minimum practicable regulation" and
"reasonable accommodation" of amateur antennas in state law is
helpful to hams because state, county and local governments are directly
regulated by state laws, and any questions about state vs. federal jurisdiction
are eliminated.

Tuesday, December 23, 2014

Tune in Christmas at the bottom of the world... the following is from Nathaniel Frissell, W2NAF/KC4, currently in Antarctica:

Each year, the residents of McMurdo Station, Antarctica celebrate Christmas by singing Christmas Carols to the remote, Antarctic field camps on the HF radio. This year, we are asking ham radio operators around the world to listen in and e-mail short wave listening reports telling us how far away the carols are heard.

Monday, December 15, 2014

Hitchin' a Ride. . .

Interplanetary satellite Shin’en 2

A Japanese space mission to visit an asteroid launched in
early December included two hitch-hikers, amateur radio satellites Shin'en 2
(JG6YIG) and ARTSAT2:DESPATCH (JQ1ZNN), the two latest ham satellites to
venture beyond Earth orbit (a recent Chinese moon mission also carried a
downlink-only ham satellite). According to the ARRL Letter, the two satellites
will have an elliptical deep-space orbit around the sun, between Venus and
Mars. The satellites should remain in Earth's equatorial plane and their orbit
will take them between 65 million and 121 million miles from the Sun.

Shin'en 2 carries a CW beacon and a telemetry transmitter,
as well as a digital store-and-forward transponder with an uplink on 2 meters
and a downlink on 70 centimeters. ARTSAT2:DESPATCH carries a sculpture built by
a 3D printer as well as a 7-watt transmitter sending out CW on 437 MHz. The
satellite carried only batteries and no solar panel, so its estimated operating
time was only about one week. One of the first reception reports, according to
the AMSAT News Service, came from Michal Zawada, SQ5KTM, who reported
monitoring both satellites two days after launch from a distance of
approximately 1.1 million kilometers, or 683,500 miles, from Earth.

A third satellite, called SpinSat, was launched November 28
from the International Space Station. Built by the U.S. Naval Research
Laboratory, its prime mission is to test new nicro-thruster technology. But it
also carries an amateur packet radio store-and-forward system on 437.230 MHz.
It was expected to operate for approximately six months.

The Hollywood Reporter says NBC has signed on for a pilot of
an adaptation of the 2000 Dennis Quaid movie, "Frequency," as a
possible new series. Many hams will recall this movie, since it was built
around the stars' use of ham radio to do something most of us cannot -- talk
across time. There was no timetable given for possible airing, or any
indication of whether any of the movie's cast members might return for a TV version.

If "Frequency" does get the green light to become
a series, it would be the second current prime-time series to feature amateur
radio, along with the occasional but much more realistic portrayals of the
hobby on ABC's "Last Man Standing."

The International Amateur Radio Union is encouraging all
member societies to seek support from their respective governments for a
worldwide amateur allocation on 60 meters (5 MHz). Currently, the U.S. and
several other countries allow amateurs secondary use of the band. In the U.S.,
it is the only channelized ham band. The next World Radiocommunication
Conference (WRC-15), later this year, is slated to take up a proposal for a
worldwide secondary amateur allocation on 5 MHz. The ARRL Letter reports that
IARU President Tim Ellam, VE6SH, sent a letter to all member organizations
saying that getting a band at 60 meters is "one of the main goals at
WRC-15 for the Amateur Radio Service." The IARU is made up of national amateur
radio associations from around the world.

The 721st Mechanized Contest Battalion, a group of young
hams from New Jersey, has entered its Emergency Antenna Platform System (E-APS)
in the Boca Bearings Innovation Competition, which offers prizes for innovative
projects using any sort of bearings. The E-APS is a robotic device that can
carry an antenna up virtually any parking lot light pole and use is as an
ad-hoc tower. Applications for emergency communications and other portable
operations are obvious. The group has demonstrated the system at Dayton, the
New York Maker Faire and the ARRL Centennial Convention. To learn more, visit
< http://bit.ly/1umbAkK >.

The latest update to the U.S. Department of Homeland
Security's National Emergency Communications Plan, or NECP, specifically
includes amateur radio as a resource for supporting or sustaining
communications in an emergency or disaster. According to the ARRL Letter, the
new plan says amateur radio operators "can be important conduits for
relaying information to response agencies and personnel when other forms of
communications have failed or have been disrupted." It also urged the
inclusion of amateur radio representatives on statewide interoperability
planning or steering committees. The 2014 update is the first since the plan
was originally rolled out in 2008.

New Study Casts Further Doubt on Health Risks from Weak
Magnetic Fields

For nearly 40 years, there have been fears among some
segments of the public that there was somehow a tie-in between the magnetic
fields created by cell phones, power transmission lines and radio transmitters
and diseases such as leukemia. The FCC has even issued strict guidelines
limiting exposure to RF fields, even though there has never been a conclusive
study showing a cause-and-effect relationship, and no mechanism connecting
magnetic fields and human illness has ever been found.

Now, a new study by England's Manchester Institute of
Biotechnology - published in December's Journal of the Royal Society - has
apparently ruled out one of the prime candidates. The website MedicalXpress.com
reports that the team from Manchester studied the effects of weak magnetic
fields, or WMFs, on flavoproteins, a class of proteins responsible for a
variety of vital functions in the body. Their research showed "no
detectable impact" of WMFs on flavoprotein functioning. One of the paper's
authors said that while more work needs to be done on other possible links,
"this study definitely takes us nearer to the point where we can say that
power lines, mobile phones and other similar devices are likely to be safe for
humans." (TNX WA5VJB)

The University of Missouri-St. Louis granted an honorary
Doctor of Music and Technology to Bob Heil, K9EID, during its December 20th
commencement ceremony. Heil was recognized for his contributions to the world
of broadcast, live and studio sound, and innovations amateur radio, according
to a news release. Bob also spoke at the commencement. (We hope the university
was using a Heil mic!)

DX Engineering has purchased Bencher's Skyhawk and Skylark
Antenna lines as well as the Butternut Antenna line. It will continue
manufacturing all models and will carry all the service, repair, and
replacement parts required to keep these antennas in good operating condition.

The Rockall DX Group says it has permission to operate a
DXpedition from Iran's Kish Island. The EP6T operation is scheduled for this
month, although dates were not certain as we went to press. Updates should be
available from < http://www.Rockall.be >.

Resident hams in the Cook Islands will be using special E50x
1x1 call signs throughout 2015 to commemorate the island group's 50th
anniversary of self-governance. According to a report on Southgate Amateur
Radio News, there are only seven resident licensed hams in the 15-island
nation, most of whom prefer rag-chewing to rapid-fire DX-style contacts and are
not trained in handling pileups. Visiting hams will receive standard E51xxx
calls.

Two arms of MARS - the Military Auxiliary Radio System - and
the ARRL's Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) were involved in a nationwide
communications interoperability exercise held last October. The ARRL Letter
reports that Army and Air Force MARS merged their normally-separate long-distance
radio networks during the course of the 48-hour exercise, which simulated a
disruption to the nation's communications infrastructure. In addition, MARS
members were tasked with using amateur frequencies and their amateur call signs
to make contact with ARES leaders or members in as many U.S. counties as
possible. Army MARS Program Manager Paul English, WD8DBY, said preliminary
results showed that MARS-ARES linkups were successfully made in approximately
half of the nation's 3077 counties. The exercise was sponsored by the
Department of Defense.

The European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications
Administrations (CEPT) will be considering a recommendation from its Electronic
Communications Committee to urge member nations to provide more accommodations
for people with disabilities taking amateur radio license exams. Newsline
reports that the committee adopted the recommendation in October, at the urging
of Region I of the International Amateur Radio Union. Recommendations include
added flexibility in testing locations and/or additional time to complete
exams, and providing visually-impaired candidates with Braille exams that do
not include diagrams. There are no details yet on when the full CEPT may take
up the recommendation and/or how the new procedures might be implemented when
and if approved.

A ham in New Zealand has developed a new "sentence-mode
radio chat system that works like cell phone texting," according to the
South African Radio League (SARL). ZL2AFP's "EXChat" is an extension
of DominoEX, an MFSK chat mode for HF, particularly the lower HF bands, where
noise and crowding often make digital mode communications difficult. The SARL
report says the EXChat program "equips your computer with a
one-sentence-at-a-time chat mode for operation on the HF bands (that you use)
in the same way as you would SkypeT or cell phone texting. For more information
or a free download, visit < http://bit.ly/1wdBWe6 >.

Research in South Africa is focusing on the mechanisms
behind Near Vertical Incidence Skywave, or NVIS, propagation. NVIS is most
useful for short-range communications on the lower HF bands. According to
Newsline, two South African stations 51 kilometers (32 miles) apart, ZS6KN and
ZS6KTS, tracked their contacts over a period of several months in 2014. On one
day in June, signals were good from 0500 to 1630 local time, after which they
disappeared (ground wave signals would have remained more or less consistent).
The pattern repeated in July but the signals were considerably weaker in August
and September, late winter and early spring in the Southern Hemisphere. The
findings also showed changes consistent with changes in sunrise and sunset,
which suggests that NVIS may be influenced by changes in the D-layer of the
ionosphere, which is energized only during daylight hours. There has not been
enough data collected to make any meaningful conclusions, according to the
report, which notes that the two hams are continuing their research.

Licensed in 1965 as WN2RJJ, Bob's introduction to ham
radio was the annual Novice Roundup contest, and he has been hooked on DXing
and contesting ever since. A veteran of more than two dozen DXpeditions to over
a dozen countries, he is currently part of the K1N team planning to activate
Navassa Island in January, 2015. Bob is the team's QSL manager, another major
part of his ham radio activities. He has served as a QSL manager for over 100
DX stations and another 100-plus DXpeditions for more than 35 years and is the
founder of the QSL Managers Society, which serves as a single point of contact
for stations seeking a QSL manager, works to preserve old DX and DXpedition
logs, and promote a code of ethics among QSL managers.

Bob is also on the board of directors of the
International DX Association (INDEXA), president of the South Jersey DX
Association, a charter member of the Old Barney Amateur Radio Club (also in New
Jersey) and trustee of a local repeater. He lives in Tuckerton, New Jersey,
with his wife, Beth, KF2BQ, and is a father and grandfather.

"I am looking forward to the opportunity to work
with Bob," said CQ Editor Rich Moseson, W2VU. "His dedication to the
DXing portion of our hobby is unparalleled, not only in terms of his on-air
activities but of the all-important 'final courtesy' of QSLing as well."

"This will be a new challenge for me!" said
Schenck. "I look forward to joining the CQ staff and working with my
friends in the DX community as well!"

Schenck will begin writing the CQ DX column as of the
magazine's January 2015 issue - CQ's 70th anniversary edition.

Tuesday, November 18, 2014

John Bergman,
KC5LK, of Brandon, Mississippi, has been named the new CQ Worked all Zones
Award Manager, effective January 1, 2015, it was announced today by CQ magazine
Editor Rich Moseson, W2VU. Bergman will succeed fellow Mississippian Floyd
Gerald, N5FG, who has served the DXing community in the position for the past
11 years.

John has been licensed since 1978 (originally as KA5AFT),
and holds an Advanced Class license. He has been heavily involved in DX and
DXing for over 20 years, is a charter member of the 599 DX Association, former
member of the Magnolia DX Association, and a member and past president of the
Jackson Amateur Radio Club. He is also a volunteer examiner and a card checker
for both ARRL and CQ awards. John also dedicated 10 years to working with the
W5 incoming QSL Bureau.

He holds DXCC (338 current entities; 344 total); 5-Band
DXCC with endorsements for 30, 17 and 12 meters; has 1680 band/entities in the
DXCC Challenge, is a member of the DXCC Mixed and Phone Honor Rolls, and has
5-Band WAZ with 179 total zones to date.

"We wish Floyd well in his retirement from WAZ and
thank him for his decade-plus of dedication to the DXing community," noted
CQ Editor Rich Moseson, W2VU. "I am looking forward to working with John
as he assumes the leadership of the most prestigious award program in all of
amateur radio. WAZ is the second-oldest active award program in ham radio, and
one of the most difficult to achieve. I am confident that John will do an
excellent job of preserving its heritage while also promoting its future
growth."

"I am very appreciative of Rich and CQ magazine
giving me this opportunity to serve CQ and the DX community," said
Bergman, "and will strive to continue the high standards of WAZ Awards
program."

As of January 1, any correspondence relating to the CQ
WAZ Award program should be directed to: John Bergman, KC5LK, P.O. Box 792,
Brandon, MS 39043, USA; or via e-mail to <kc5lk@cq-amateur-radio.com>.

Friday, November 14, 2014

Two satellites carrying ham radio payloads were among more
than two dozen satellites lost in the October 28 launch failure of Orbital
Sciences Corporation's Antares 130 rocket. The rocket malfunctioned seconds
after launch from NASA's Wallops Island spaceport in Virginia and was destroyed
by the range safety officer in a spectacular explosion.

According to the ARRL Letter, the satellites aboard the
craft included two with amateur radio payloads -- the Radiometer Atmospheric
Cubesat Experiment (RACE) built jointly by the University of Texas at Austin
and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and GOMX-2, designed by Aalborg
University in Denmark.

GOMX-2 was to test a new de-orbiting system and
flight-qualify a new high-speed UHF transceiver and a software-defined receiver
built by Aalborg. It had a data downlink on 70 centimeters. RACE carried a new
183-GHz radiometer designed by JPL and had ham-band data and CW telemetry
downlinks on 70 centimeters. UT Engineering Professor Glen Lightsey, KE5DDG,
told the Letter, "It's unfortunate, but it is also part of the aerospace
industry." Watch video of the Antares explosion at <

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has granted permission to
the KP1-5 Project to mount a DXpedition to Navassa Island in the Caribbean in
January 2015. Navassa is No. 2 on DX magazine's "most wanted" list. The
call sign will be K1N. Specific dates had not been set as of press time. For
more details, see December CQ's DX column on page 86.

The new president and vice president of Indonesia are both
hams, according to the ARRL, which reports that President Joko
"Jokowi" Widodo is YD2JKW, while Vice President Jusuk Kalla is
YC8HYK. Both were inaugurated on October 20, with U.S. Secretary of State John
Kerry in attendance. Indonesia is the world's third-largest democracy.

Indonesian hams may be called on to help respond to any
possible Ebola outbreak in the country. According to Newsline, an article in
the Jakarta Post reported that amateur radio was an element of a proposed
standard operating procedure being developed in the event that any cases of the
deadly disease reach Indonesia.

Houlin Zhao of China has been elected the new
Secretary-General of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU),
succeeding Dr. Hamadoun Touré, who is also HB9EHT. Zhao has served as Touré's
deputy for the past eight years. He takes over the top spot on January 1, 2015,
according to the ARRL Letter.

A satellite from Luxembourg, flying as a
"passenger" on a Chinese lunar fly-by mission and transmitting on 2
meters, successfully flew to and around the moon, then returned to Earth orbit.
The Chinese mothership deployed the 4M (Manfred Memorial Moon Mission)
satellite into orbit before it safely landed back on Earth. Several amateurs
were able to track 4M on its journey. For more info, click here or visit <
http://moon.luxspace.lu/blog/ >.

The ARRL has asked the FCC to continue routinely sending
paper licenses to new amateurs, even as it begins to phase them out overall.
The FCC has indicated that it plans to stop routinely issuing printed license
documents to Wireless Service licensees (including hams), unless they are
specifically requested. For the FCC's purposes, your listing on the Universal
Licensing System (ULS) database is your official license document. According to
the ARRL Letter, the League pointed out in its comments that requiring
individuals to go online to either download or request a printed license may be
a roadblock to some applicants, and pointed out that official license documents
are still required for such things as taking upgrade exams or applying for call
sign license plates. The ARRL proposed sending a printed license to newly-licensed
hams, along with instructions on selecting a preferred method for future
renewals and upgrades.

Responding to a federal law that requires states to ban
texting while driving in order to receive federal funds for driver safety
programs, the ARRL Executive Committee has updated the League's policy
statement on mobile operating to urge continued exemption of amateur radio
communications from many of these restrictions. The League called for states
and municipalities to narrowly define "wireless communications
devices" to include only "full duplex wireless telephones" and
to specifically exclude "two-way radio communications equipment." The
complete text of the policy statement is available at < http://www.arrl.org/mobile-amateur-radio-policy
>.

The ARRL Board of Directors will be taking up a proposal at
its January meeting from Southeastern Division Director Doug Rehman, K4AC, who
wants the League to petition the FCC for expanded HF digital privileges for
Technician Class hams. Rehman wants to see these privileges extended to 80, 40
and 15 meters as well as the current allocation on 10 meters.

The League's Executive Committee debated the proposal at its
October meeting and recommended that the full board in January consider
soliciting input from members on adding digital privileges for Technicians only
in the current 15-meter Novice/Tech subband. According to the ARRL Letter, ARRL
CEO Dave Sumner, K1ZZ, emphasized that this is still very preliminary.

"This is not a proposal that the Board adopt data
privileges for Techs and Novices on 15 meters as an objective, and it is most
definitely not an ARRL proposal to the FCC," Sumner stressed, adding
"(t)hat would come later, if at all, after the Board has had an
opportunity to weigh membership input."

The Radio Society of Great Britain's Islands on the Air
(IOTA) program managers have decided to "freeze" any IOTA actions
related to Crimea for at least a year, because of the still unresolved
political situation there. Crimea was annexed by Russia after a referendum
there called for separation from Ukraine, but the action has not been
recognized by the international community.

CQ initially decided not to accept contest logs from Crimean
stations using Russian-issued calls, but then reversed course amid significant
pressure from the worldwide contest community. (For more on this, see this December's DX column on page 86.)

The Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS)
program is accepting applications from schools and other "formal and
informal educational institutions and organizations" for amateur radio contacts
with the crew of the ISS next year. But the application window closes on
December 15. These applications would be for space station contacts between May
1 and December 31, 2015. For details, click here or visit < http://bit.ly/1xqT6CZ >.

California high school student Shiloh Curtis, KK6ISM, has
been named one of nine Popular Mechanics "Future Breakthrough Award"
winners for designing a robotic navigation aid system for people with visual
impairments. According to the ARRL Letter, Curtis's device is built around a
hat containing a robot vacuum cleaner's laser distance sensors and vibrating
motors to warn wearers of obstacles. A high school junior, Shiloh and her
project have also been recognized as the California State Fair's "Project
of the Year" and as a regional finalist in the Google Science Fair. Her
father, Dave Curtis, is also a ham, N6NZ.

Region 1 of the International Amateur Radio Union (IARU R1)
- representing national ham radio societies in Europe, Africa and the Middle
East - has formed a region-wide Youth Working Group and appointed 24-year-old
Lisa Leenders, PA2LS, of the Netherlands, to a three-year term as Chair and
Youth Coordinator. According to the ARRL Letter, the group was also given a
three-year budget of nearly $30,000 US for events and activities. One of its
first projects will be to organize and coordinate Youngsters On The Air (YOTA)
events and activities.

Delegates to the IARU Region 1 general conference in
Bulgaria in September also approved forming an Amateur Radio Observation
Service to monitor DXpeditions for malicious interference and to try to track
down possible sources. The delegates also supported a proposal by five IARU R1
countries to the European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications
Administrations (CEPT) for a region-wide secondary amateur allocation at
69.9-70.5 MHz, also known as 4 meters. Some European countries already allow
amateur operation on 4 meters. A request to the FCC for a matching band in the
US was recently turned down.

The Administrative Council of the International Amateur
Radio Union (IARU) is asking member nations of the International
Telecommunication Union (ITU), to take steps to minimize interference to
amateur radio by "electrical apparatus or installations of any kind,
including power and telecommunication distribution networks." The ARRL
Letter reports that the council adopted a resolution that highlights
"rapid and largely uncontrolled growth" of devices - such as plasma
TVs, switching power supplies and Broadband over Power Lines (BPL) - that
generate RF energy "as an unnecessary and undesirable consequence of their
operation." The resolution calls on regulators to set strict standards for
interference reduction and on manufacturers to voluntarily "minimize radio
spectrum pollution emanating from their products."

We are saddened to report the passing of several prominent
amateurs in October. The ARRL Letter reports that Ken Holladay, K6HCP, the
co-founder of both Mirage Communications and KLM antennas, became a Silent Key
on October 14 after an extended illness. He was 75.

Sheldon "Shelly" Weil, K2BS, passed away on
October 29 from complications due to injuries suffered in a fall. He was 81.
Weil was a leader in scouting and amateur radio over several decades, staffing
ham stations at national and world jamborees. He also served as chairman of the
Boy Scouts of America's National Jewish Committee on Scouting.

Author Bill Sabin, WØIYH, of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, became a
Silent Key on October 13 at age 88. A longtime engineer for Collins Radio
Company, Sabin authored more than 40 technical articles and contributed to or
co-edited three books on single sideband and HF radio. He was the author of
Discrete Signal Analysis and Design, and a contributor to ARRL's RF Amplifier
Classics.

Newsline reports on a new "app" for Apple devices
running the iOS 8 operating system called "Morse Code Telegraph
Keyboard." It replaces the on-screen keyboard of your iPad or iPhone with
a J-38-looking hand key on which you can tap out letters in Morse code and have
them print out in your e-mails or iMessages. Considering how difficult some
people find using the on-screen keyboard, this just might help you compose
messages with fewer typing errors! It's $1.99 at the Apple App Store.

Tuesday, October 21, 2014

In response to requests from a large number of contesters around the world, CQ
has reconsidered its decision regarding the acceptance of logs from stations in
Crimea in CQ-sponsored contests.

As CQ Publisher Dick Ross, K2MGA, explained, "a large portion of the
contesting community felt that we were unfairly denying our fellow amateurs in
Crimea of the opportunity to fully participate in our contests. Since the
country list for CQ contests is based on a combination of the Worked All Europe
(WAE) and ARRL DXCC lists, and the ARRL has already adopted a policy regarding
Crimean stations in its award and contest programs, we will amend our policy to
be consistent with the ARRL's DXCC policy."

"Therefore, the listings of Crimean stations submitting logs for CQ
contests will be based on the call sign under which they have operated. If they
used Russian-issued calls in the contest, they will be listed under Russia; if
they used Ukrainian-issued calls in the contest, they will be listed under
Ukraine. This change reflects not only the desire of many contesters around the
world, but also of a large majority of members of the CQ World Wide DX Contest
Committee."

Friday, October 17, 2014

After considerable
deliberation, CQ has determined that the best course of action regarding Crimea
and CQ contests is to follow the lead of the United Nations and the United
States government, both of which continue to consider Crimea to be part of
Ukraine, until such time as the political situation there is resolved.
Therefore,

Logs will not be accepted for any CQ contest from stations
in Crimea operating with Russian-issued call signs. Contacts made by others with
those stations will be removed from contestants' logs without penalty. No
contact or multiplier credits will be given.

We fully realize that our
action may very well disenfranchise several Crimean contesters who use Russian
prefixes instead of Ukrainian prefixes. As regrettable as that may be, our
action is consistent with international law, as well as with our own Rules.

Monday, October 13, 2014

Ham
Shares Nobel Prize in Chemistry

Move
over, K1JT. William Moerner, WN6I, of Los Altos, California, left, has just joined
the ranks of Nobel-prize winning hams. Moerner, a chemistry professor at
Stanford University, shares the prize with two others - Eric Betzig of the
Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Ashburn, Virginia, and Stefan Hell of the
Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Germany. The three were
recognized for separate work on what's called super-resolved fluorescence
microscopy or nanoscopy, techniques that allow an optical microscope
to observe cellular activity on the molecular level. According to the Nobel
prize news release, the techniques use fluorescent molecules to allow
researchers to "track proteins involved in Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and
Huntington's diseases as they aggregate, (and to) follow individual proteins in
fertilized eggs as these divide into embryos."

Moerner,
Betzig and Hell will share the 8 million Swedish Krona ($1.1 million US) prize
that comes along with the honor. Each scientist's share is approximately
$368,000 US.

About Me

Published monthly since 1945, CQ is today the world's leading independent amateur radio magazine, now available in both print and digital editions. We focus on interesting people and practical projects, plus we sponsor a wide array of contests and award programs. These include the very challenging Worked All Zones (WAZ) and USA-Counties (USA-CA) awards and the world's most popular ham radio contests, the CQ World Wide DX Contest and the CQ WPX Contest. Subscriptions are available online through our website, www.cq-amateur-radio.com.